Mark Morisson-Reed: Just before Advent

 "Just before Advent, a group of us headed up the mountain to collect boughs. We trudged along until we reached a recently logged clearing. We gathered evergreen branches from the ground, while one of the braver souls climbed up a tree and brought down some mistletoe. The next day we assembled Advent wreaths, and by the first Sunday evening of Advent we were ready. 

  Full of anticipation, we milled about outside the dining hall. The doors opened to a dazzling sight. Candlelight flickered everywhere—on the tabletops, on the windowsills, on the counters—while large paper snowflakes hung from the ceiling. A wreath lay on each table, surrounded by a feast. Ecole meals were simple and hearty, meat once a week and all the potatoes you could eat. But at Advent the tables were laden with assortments of cheese and sausage and pickles, white instead of coarse brown bread, hot punch instead of the regular tea, and baskets full of peanuts and tangerines. We gorged. Boisterous voices filled the room until the bell rang, a signal to be silent. A hush descended, then quiet conversation resumed, building to a crescendo until the bell rang yet again. In the midst of this revelry, I grabbed a tangerine, stopped, and stared. Looking up at me from its thin tissue wrapper was a jet-black Sambo with red lips as large as liver-lipped Rodney’s, my childhood target. I flinched. I looked around. No one else had noticed my reaction or the racist caricature; they just kept wolfing down supper. But for me, in that moment, the celebration lost some of its magic.

 We gathered silently in the main hall. All was dark except the halo around a small table ablaze with candles. We remained quiet because of the mood, but also because of Herr Lüthi’s stern face and watchful eyes. The chairs were arranged in a half circle for Andacht—a nonsectarian devotional hour held every Sunday evening. But these four Sundays leading up to Christmas were different from all others. After a long silence Herr Lüthi began: Die Räuber-Mutter, die in der Räuberhöhle im Göingerwald wohnte (The Robber Mother, who lived in the Robber Cave up in Göinger Forest). In the dark I was transported by Selma Lagerlöf’s story, “The Legend of the Christmas Rose.” He read this story every year, followed by three additional stories. My brother, Philip, heard them when he attended the Ecole the year after I left, and I heard them again when I returned as an adult.

 There were other rituals, among them the Christmas play. I was given the obvious role. I suppose everyone else knew before I did that I—the only Negro student—would play Kaspar, the Moor, one of the Three Wise Men. My lines were simple enough, and translated into English, they meant: “And I am the king from Moorland. My name is King Kaspar. But even though I have a black face, fear not, dear children. I am known to be a good king.” Calming children’s fear of my black skin was the least of my problems. Every time I delivered my lines, the cast burst out laughing because I kept pronouncing the German word for fear (Furcht) so that it sounded like the word for fruit (Frucht). I kept saying, “fruit not, dear children,” and when the roar subsided we would start over again."

From: Mark Morisson-Reed: In Between. Skinner House Books, 2009. Chapter Ecole d’Humanité